


Better Than Any Flame

by alisvolatpropiis



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bearded Stiles, Derek POV, Derek discovers his beard kink, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Hale Family Feels, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, Rimming, Tattooed Stiles, Tattoos, brief mentions of Kate and the fire, possibly canon compliant?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 10:49:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2188908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alisvolatpropiis/pseuds/alisvolatpropiis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You've got something on your face,” Derek says, clearing his throat, resisting the urge to reach up and touch the scraggly beard, to get his mouth on it.</p><p>Stiles rolls his eyes but he still leans forward to bump a shoulder against his in greeting. “This thing,” he says, <em>petting </em>it. “Scott and I had a bet to see who could grow a better beard.” </p><p>Derek doesn’t even glance over at Scott, who he already knows is clean-shaven; he just holds Stiles’ unnerving stare, trying to figure out the look in those big brown eyes. It's something like innocence, but it's way too knowing, too sure, to be sincere. It's classic Stiles, really. Derek raises one eyebrow at him and strokes his own, better beard, making a show of luxuriating in how full and soft it is. “And you lost so you had to keep yours,” he says finally, fighting a smile. </p><p>Stiles tosses his head back in wide-mouthed laughter, and goddammit, Derek wants to lick, wants to taste, wants to <em>feel</em>. Stiles walks past him on his way to the dining room, patting him roughly on the shoulder, winking again. “I missed you too, big guy.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Than Any Flame

**Author's Note:**

> I've been on the bearded!Stiles train for awhile, and now Dylan is all scruffy...so this was bound to happen. Another attempt at smut that turned into smut and feels. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!!
> 
> xoxo

Derek remembers when Laura came home for Christmas after her first semester in college. Almost all of her hair was gone, and what was left of it was bright turquoise, and she had a tiny rhinestone through each nostril.

Talia Hale made a vow when she had Laura, her first child, to never use her alpha powers on her children unless it was a life-or-death situation. The closest Derek ever heard her come to breaking it was when she saw the barbell through Laura’s tongue. He locked himself in his room for the duration of their fight, wishing yet again that the walls were soundproof, but for an entirely new reason this time.

Later that night after talking to Paige on the phone for almost an hour, he heard his older sister’s voice whispering his name from outside. He rolled out of bed and opened the window, leaned down to stare at her. “What the hell, Lo?” Her hair was pale green in the half-moon light and she had that glint in her eye that Derek knew meant she was up to something.

“If you’re done jerkin’ it for the night, come help me out with something in the garage, baby bro.” She disappeared before he could come up with a good retort, but he pulled on a shirt and headed downstairs anyways.

The garage was designed to contain out of control werewolves and as such was the only part of the house that was sound proof, but in those years it was mostly used as a place for the Hale siblings to meet to talk about stuff they didn’t want their parents or uncle Peter overhearing. It was where Derek first told Laura that he was bi, and it was where Laura first told Derek that she was planning on going to college as far away from Beacon Hills as she could, expressly against their mother’s wishes; and, it was where Cora told them that the real reason she got two weeks of detention was because she used her wolf strength to beat up a kid who was picking on her best friend Boyd.

And then, in the middle of the night two days before Christmas, almost three years before the fire, it was where Laura thrust a hand-held blowtorch into his hand and turned her back to him, smiling wide. “Check it out,” she said, pulling off her Boston College hoodie. She was wearing a thin-strapped tank top with a low-cut back, and at first Derek had no idea what she was doing.

“What am I looking at?”

“Use your eyes, dummy.” 

Derek _rolled_ his eyes, and then did as she said, letting them glow gold, enhancing his vision. There, just under a thin layer of freshly-healed skin between her shoulder blades, he saw the Hale emblem, the triskele, three spirals pivoting from a central anchor point: alpha, beta, omega. It was big too, about the size of his hand. “You got a tattoo? Mom’s gonna _kill_ you.”

Laura laughed, fearless as always. “Whatever. It’s pack, and it’s her family emblem. How pissed can she get? Now hurry up and make it permanent.” She handed him a lighter too, then yanked off her belt, clamping her teeth around the leather. “Try to be quick about it, okay,” she said, words muffled.

“You want me to burn the healed skin off,” he asked, blanching a bit.

Laura spit the belt out of her mouth. “It’s the only way to make it last. Come on, Derbear, are you saying you faint at the sight of blood,” she asked, part mocking, part-exasperated, all loving big sister.

“No, but I might at the sight of your skin burning off,” he snapped back, all bratty little brother.

“You’ll deal. Come on, the longer I wait the more it’s going to hurt.” She turned back around, sitting backwards in an old kitchen chair, putting the belt back in her mouth. 

Surprisingly, his hands didn’t shake and he didn’t pass out or throw up. It only took a minute, the skin sizzling so hot and fast it barely even smelled. Laura’s claws stabbed into the chair where she was gripping at it and she growled a bit as her fangs sank into the leather, but she didn’t scream. Derek never told her, but he was impressed.

“Well, fuck, that was the worst thing I ever felt,” she said when it was over, sweat beading on her temples. She gingerly pulled her hoodie back on, wincing. “We’ll get you yours on your eighteenth birthday,” she said, punching him in the stomach before walking back into the house.

**~*~**

Derek is expecting the pack to look different when they come back for winter break after their first semester at University of Oregon. He knows kids tend to make drastic changes to their appearance once they get away from their parents for the first time, even if he never got the chance to do so himself.

So he isn't all that surprised by Scott’s two new tattoos, Kira’s nose hoop, or even Lydia’s side-shaved haircut, which is way hotter than he would have expected.

But he wasn’t at all expecting Stiles _with a beard_.

Bearded _Stiles_. 

Derek shuffles his feet in the McCall living room as everyone hugs their hellos and starts moving towards the dining room for dinner, rubbing his hand through his own beard, which is of course much fuller and more cultivated than the admittedly patchy but still endearing, sexy mess on Stiles’ face.

He remembers very clearly the day, more than a year ago now, that he realized how _grown up_ Stiles had become. He had always thought the boy beautiful in an obnoxious, look-at-my-cute-little-nose-and-perfectly-kissable-pink lips kind of way, but one day he was suddenly _handsome_ , settling into his body, last vestiges of childhood roundness disappearing from his face to reveal elegantly high cheekbones and a sharp-edged jaw. He stopped buzzing his hair too, and dressing better…and well, yeah, Derek had _noticed_ , it was impossible not to.

But he had controlled himself, because no matter how gorgeously grown-up looking he had become, he was still in high school and no matter how different the situation, he couldn't help but think about when he was that age and Kate and _no_.

But Stiles is in college now, nineteen and carrying himself with a confidence that Derek has never seen from him, sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up to show those toned, beauty-marked forearms, smile even brighter against the dark scruff of that cursed beard. His hair is dark and wild too, just long enough to get a good grip on, and his neck, god has his neck been always been so long and corded with strong tendons when he turns to the side to wink at him like that?

_Oh god._

“You've got something on your face,” Derek says, clearing his throat, resisting the urge to reach up and touch the scraggly beard, to get his mouth on it.

Stiles rolls his eyes but he still leans forward to bump a shoulder against his in greeting. “This thing,” he says, _petting_ it. “Scott and I had a bet to see who could grow a better beard.” 

Derek doesn’t even glance over at Scott, who he already knows is clean-shaven; he just holds Stiles’ unnerving stare, trying to figure out the look in those big brown eyes. It's something like innocence, but it's way too knowing, too sure, to be sincere. It's classic Stiles, really. Derek raises one eyebrow at him and strokes his own, better beard, making a show of luxuriating in how full and soft it is. “And you lost so you had to keep yours,” he says finally, fighting a smile. 

Stiles tosses his head back in wide-mouthed laughter, and goddammit, Derek wants to lick, wants to taste, wants to _feel_. Stiles walks past him on his way to the dining room, patting him roughly on the shoulder, winking again. “I missed you too, big guy.”

~*~

Derek excuses himself not long after dessert, looking Stiles right in the eye and announcing that he has to get going, has some things to take care of. It’s only twenty minutes after he climbs in the window of Stiles’ bedroom that Stiles himself arrives, an enthusiastic “I knew it!” cut off abruptly when Derek pins him to the back of the door.

It doesn’t surprise him, not really, how familiar it feels to stand in the dark corner of Stiles’ bedroom, waiting for him to get home, pushing him around just rough enough to get both of their hearts racing.

This time though, Derek lets himself press hard against him the way he’s always wanted to, lets his eyes linger on his mouth much longer than he ever has before. Stiles’ bottom lip looks even redder than he remembers, probably from the way he was biting at it, fluttering his eyes at Derek across the dinner table all night, long fingers stroking casually at that goddamn beard as he entertained everyone with stories of the College Adventures of the True Alpha and His Loyal Sidekick.

“Finally,” Stiles breathes into his ear when Derek starts rubbing his own beard against his face, closing his eyes at the sweet friction and the blossoming of their combined scents. Derek makes a noise that’s somewhere between a groan and a happy sigh, breathing him deep, still a little stunned that he’s finally letting himself have this, that Stiles feels both exactly and nothing at all like he imagined. His blood is starting to feel too hot in his veins, Stiles’ hands clutching at his back, bringing him closer, his own little happy noises filling the room.

“You want this,” Derek asks, fingers finding the rough patches on his cheeks, wondering what they'll feel like against his thighs. “I mean, do you want me?”

“God, Derek, yes, of course I do. I’ve wanted you as long as I’ve known you, and if I had known all it would take is a shitty beard I would have stopped shaving years – "

Derek’s imagined kissing Stiles way more times than he’d like to admit, but in all those times, in all the possible scenarios he’s dreamed up, he never imagined Stiles with facial hair, never thought to fantasize about what it might be like to feel the coarse-but-still-soft bristles against his mouth and his tongue, tangling in his own beard.

It’s _unbelievable_.

Stiles’ answering moan is deep, like he’s been holding it back for ages, and he kisses back with an eager intensity and skill that stuns Derek anew, makes his skin even hotter with need, makes him press his hard cock into Stiles’ groin, smiling into the kiss when he feels him bulging back against him.

It’s not long before they’re on the bed, still kissing frantically and pawing at each other, clothes coming off in a whirl of good-natured grunts, Stiles’ almost-manic mutterings about how he can’t believe this is happening punctuating their laughter. 

When they’re both naked, moonlight casting blue shadows across their skin, Stiles leans back into a pile of pillows against his headboard and Derek straddles him, reaching to cup his face in his hands, rubbing his palms across his cheeks, sweeping under his chin, delighting in the feel of his beard, in the feel of Stiles beneath him. Stiles catches a thumb between his teeth, teases it with his tongue for a second before sucking it into his mouth, eyes fluttering.

Stiles smiles when he lets it go, kissing Derek’s palm before running his hands all over his body, tongue sticking out of his open mouth just a bit, eyes wide and hungry. “You have no idea how good it feels to finally be able to touch you like this,” he says, every caress and press of his big hands making Derek shudder with shockwaves of warm pleasure. 

“I think I do,” he answers, letting his own hands explore Stiles’ toned shoulders and arms, the small patch of hair between his pecs and the thicker strip below his belly button leading down to his stiff cock, long and silky against the inside of Derek’s thigh. 

Stiles slides his hands down Derek’s stomach and runs his fingers almost idly through the thick thatch of dark hair at the base of his cock before before taking him in his hands, whiny little mewl shaking from his throat. “I knew you’d be uncut,” he whispers, licking his lips, voice scratchy, fingers pulling lightly at his foreskin, exploring. 

Derek nearly dissolves at the touch, at the hushed reverence in Stiles’ voice. “Here, let me…” Stiles says, scooting down on the pillows a bit while pulling on Derek’s hips, getting his mouth closer to him, breath hot over his flushed head, fingers working the slit until shiny beads of precome start to bubble out. Derek grips the headboard when Stiles finally puts his mouth on him, puckering those lips to suckle at his tip, practically making him weep with how good it feels.

He wants more, god, he wants everything, everything Stiles will give him, but he can’t move, can’t speak, can’t do anything but hold on tight. Stiles doesn’t take him all the way into his mouth, instead just licks at his shaft until it’s shiny with his spit and then, smiling deviously, darts his head to rub his cock across his cheek, above his mouth, on his chin and neck. Derek isn’t sure what kinds of noises are coming out of his mouth, can't really give a damn at all, not when he’s reveling in the epiphany that is the sizzling pleasure of Stiles’ beard caressing his throbbing cock.

Stiles just smiles and moans, like he’s discovered some great secret, _because he has_. He moves a bit farther down the bed to get at his balls, and Derek hisses and cries out when his beard tickles at his taint. Stiles muffles a laugh, scoots back up again. “I know what you really want,” he purrs, mahogany eyes glinting.

Derek feels boneless, already nearly overcome. He lets Stiles move him, turns him around so he’s on his hands and knees, still hovering over Stiles but backwards, ass in his face, feeling exposed but safe, cared for. Stiles rubs his face over him, breathing hotly into him, fingers exploring. Derek’s never felt the rough scratch of a beard against the tender skin of his ass but he wants to feel nothing but that forever now, as long as it’s Stiles’. 

This new position puts Stiles’ cock right in his face, and Derek smiles, gets a hand around him, pausing to wait for Stiles’ surprised little twitch. He’s thicker than Derek had imagined, cut and flushing red, small beauty mark at the base that Derek leans down to kiss before teasing at his head with his tongue, letting his own beard rustle against his shaft.

“Oh god,” Stiles moans against Derek’s ass, whiskers tickling his sensitive skin. “Derek…fuck, I’m going to come if you keep touching me. Just let me…let me get you off first, okay?”

Derek can’t form words, can barely moan a response because then Stiles just goes for it, spreads him wide and dives in, all tongue and lips and spit and beard, devouring his hole like he’s trying to get inside of him for good. He’s eager and messy and perfect, and soon Derek is panting into the inside of his thigh, biting the soft pale skin there hard enough to leave a mark. Stiles’ tongue is a gift, darting in and out of him, sliding in a long finger too. Then Derek’s rocking his hips, shameless, the heat boiling under his skin as he fucks himself on Stiles’ tongue, seeking more of the sweet sting against his hole, cock leaking freely now, Stiles reaching down to stroke him. 

He comes with shuddering gasps, eyes squeezing shut with the force of it, crying out loudly as he comes apart, body buzzing and humming with the intensity of it all, Stiles’ mouth still pressed against him, rubbing his ass raw. Still panting, he finally opens his eyes, takes in the marvel that is his spray of come across Stiles’ lean torso, a pretty complement to his mole-speckled skin, has to close them again at the beauty of it.

Stiles was right, as usual. He comes almost as soon as Derek gets his mouth on him, stuttering his name and digging his nails into his ass where he’s still holding him open, arching up until he’s rutting against his the back of his throat. Derek takes it, eyes rolling back with how good Stiles tastes, how filthy his little grunts are. When he finishes, Derek leans down to lick, tongue sloppy with Stiles’ musky come, tasting that dark spray of hair beneath his navel, softer but more dense than the scruff on his cheeks that's still rubbing across Derek’s tender skin.  

~*~

Derek sprawls across Stiles’ bed on his stomach, wrung out and sleepy. Stiles is lying half next to him, half on him, head resting on Derek’s shoulder, beard reddening his skin as he talks, kissing and mouthing at him between breathless sentences. His fingers are lightly tracing the curves of his tattoo, filling Derek with even more glowing warmth. 

“Scott made me burn his new tattoos,” he says, rocking his hips into Derek’s side, getting closer. “It was so gross.”

Derek laughs into the pillow under his face. “Did he pass out again?”

“No, but I almost did. I don’t know how you guys do that.”

He shrugs. “Just like getting a regular tattoo, I guess. If you want it enough, the pain is bearable.”

Stiles is quiet for a few minutes, hands still moving across Derek’s back, gentle caresses that are melting him, bit by bit. “Who burned yours,” he asks, hands lingering over the triskele again.

“Deaton,” he answers, and then he before he knows it, he’s telling Stiles the story of Laura’s first Christmas home from college, of her fight with their mom, about burning her tattoo in the garage in the middle of night, and Laura’s promise to take him to get his own triskele tattoo on his eighteenth birthday.

He stops then, long enough that Stiles settles next to him, amber eyes soft and big at they watch his face. “My birthday was a month after the fire,” he says finally. “Neither one of us really felt like celebrating.”

“So when did you get it,” Stiles asks, voice gentler than Derek has ever heard it.

“Laura wanted to take me the next year on my nineteenth birthday, but I didn’t want it. We got in a huge fight. I was still so angry about Kate and the fire…I told her I didn’t want anything to do with the pack, didn’t want to remember our family as werewolves, because that’s what got them killed…that’s how I got them killed. I was an idiot. Laura was so pissed. So _hurt_.”

“You were grieving, you were angry,” Stiles says. “I’m sure she understood that.”

“We got over it, eventually, but we never talked about it. And then a few years later she came back here and I didn’t hear from her for a few days…and yeah, well, you know the rest.” 

Derek twists to kiss him on the cheek before continuing. “I was going to leave, go back to Boston. But then I buried her, near our house where our family died. I circled her grave with wolfsbane like the ancient rituals say you should for alphas. I thought a lot about my family, about how Scott was one of us now, how he was going to need help. I even thought about you,” he admits, kissing him again. “About how you were probably going to get yourself killed trying to help Scott...about the way you looked at me.”

He lets out another heavy breath, smiles softly when Stiles returns his hands to the tattoo. “So I decided to stay, to try and salvage what was left of my family, to try and have a pack again. I got the tattoo right after I buried Laura, and went to Deaton to burn it, to make it permanent.”

Stiles doesn’t say anything, is quiet and still for so long Derek wonders if he’s fallen asleep. But then he moves, slides over Derek so he’s lying on him fully, warm chest still sticky with come pressed into his back, covering him like a blanket. He kisses his neck for a few minutes, slowly, lovingly. He’s smaller than Derek, of course, but he's still strong, solid enough to hold him place, anchoring him.

After a bit Stiles moves down a bit farther so his face is even with the tattoo, running his bristled chin softly over it until Derek is quivering with how good, how _right_ it feels.

Then Stiles starts licking with the tip of that tongue that just tore Derek apart, gentle and soft, putting him back together with each graceful curve over the ancient Hale pack emblem. Stiles licks like he’s not just tasting the tattoo, but the legacy he bears with it: alpha, beta, omega; life, death, rebirth; past, present, future.

Derek gives himself over completely to him, overwhelmed, the pillow under his face wet with tears, Stiles’ tender caresses piercing him more deeply than any tattoo needle ever could, burning the mark of his pack more indelibly into his skin, into his heart, better than any flame.

~*~

When Stiles comes home for spring break, he heads straight to the loft, barely getting the door closed before he’s crawling up him, wrapping his long legs around Derek’s waist, kissing him sloppily.

His beard is fuller now, long enough that Derek had to teach him over skype how to trim it. He pulls back from the kiss and rubs his cheek along Derek’s, making them both shiver. “I missed you,” he murmurs.

“I was just there visiting you a month ago,” Derek answers, gripping him tighter by the ass, carrying him to bed.

“Still too long,” Stiles mumbles, pulling at Derek’s shirt. Derek sits on the edge of the bed, lowering Stiles to straddle him, trying to decide how he wants him. Stiles moves first though, scrambles up to stand between Derek’s splayed thighs. “I got something for you,” he says, a little breathless. He yanks off his shirt – one of Derek’s v-necks that he “accidentally” left at Stiles’ apartment last month.

Derek smells it before he sees it, just a faint whiff of freshly-healed skin and pigment. It’s a triskele, identical to Derek’s, but on his right hip, curving around his side, just above the bone. "I know we're not the pack you thought you were going to build, but you did build a pack here," Stiles tells him, fingers light on Derek's jaw.

Derek’s eyes, already stinging, grow even hotter as he realizes the significance of the placement on Stiles’ body.

It’s where Peter bit Scott. Where Derek bit Jackson, Isaac, Erica, and Boyd - the Hale alphas desperate in their own ways to rebuild their pack and failing, mostly, but somehow managing to stumble into this new pack of humans and a kitsunes and a banshee and a true alpha and _Stiles_.

Derek brushes his fingers over the tattoo, breath hitching just a bit when Stiles’ pale skin rises in goosebumps under his touch. “You like it,” Stiles whispers, fingers tangling in Derek’s hair.

He’s too choked up to answer, just nods and buries his face into his stomach, breathing him in. “Did it hurt,” he mumbles at last, looking up to meet his loving, adoring eyes. 

“Yeah,” Stiles laughs. “But I wanted it bad enough, so it was bearable.” He winks down at him, still smiling. “And,” he adds, “good thing about being a weakling human? No blow torch required.”

Derek nuzzles over to the tattoo, licks over it slowly the way Stiles’ still likes to lick his, planting a hard, searing kiss into the center once Stiles is moaning a bit, tugging at his hair. “There,” he says, voice husky and raw. “It’s permanent now.”

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out on the [Tumbles](http://deleted-scenes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thanks to the good people in [Sterek Writers Network](http://sterekwriters.tumblr.com/) for keeping me inspired!


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